[J3] 21-144r2

[Shterenlikht, Anton]

Hello Tom & Generics Group

RE: 21-144r2

YOu guys have done amazing work, and I thank you
for the ambition and attention to detail.

However...

The paper has become too general to make judgements.

Few examples:

*quote*
ALG-1: Should the generics facility enable developers to define a
       scalar SWAP template that will apply to any type that supports
       assigment?  (YES, NO, UNDECIDED, ABSTAIN)
*end quote*

Sounds great - but will such facility be very complicated
to accommodate "any type that supports assignment"?
Depending on the complexity, I'd vote yes or no.
Should an allocatable character scalar variable 
always be swappable with fixed length
character scalar variable?
With truncation or padding of the fixed length var?
I worry that unexpected corner cases under "any type..."
will be discovered later, which will push the complexity even further.


MOst of the CONTAINERS-* questions are too vague to make a decision:

"convenient", "easy-to-use", "easily", "well-written",
"convenient-to-use"

(BTW, a typo:
CONTAINERS-6: Should Fortran's generics facilities enable users of
              relevant containers to indepndently
                                          ^                  )


Thank you

Anton